A basic walk cycle for the pink panther. The first frame was given to me to start it off. The reason his arms and tail flash in and out is because I didn’t finish drawing every frame. And if I hadn’t run out of time, I definitely would have attempted a more dramatic, snooty glide.
A walk cycle is created in a certain order. A single step typically takes place over 12 frames. The position where the foot hits the ground for the next step is called the contact position. These are drawn first.
Then, we draw the passing positions. These are where it is possible to put the most character and personality into the walk.
Walking is basically a process of falling and catching yourself, so we also have down and up positions.
After these drawings are established, all that is left is to draw the inbetweens — the rest of the frames that ensure the animation looks smooth. These is where I ran out time and didn’t get to the arms and the tail, and why professional animators at Disney have underlings to do all the inbetween drawings!